Politics as a substitute for religion will inevitably let you down

October 19, 2018

5 Min Read

Demonstrators gather for a "March for Our Lives" protest for gun control legislation and school safety on March 24, 2018, in Houston. Students and activists across the country planned events in conjunction with a Washington march spearheaded by teens from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where more than a dozen people were killed in February. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

(RNS) — They pore over Nate Silver’s political data analyses with the rapt attention of day traders sizing up the stock market. Every day brings emotional peaks and valleys with each up and down in the polls and the president’s approval ratings. They tend to understand themselves and others primarily on the basis of political allegiances.

They are progressive activists, demonstrators and politics junkies — followers of what some chroniclers call the new “religion” and ultimate source of meaning for those who have left organized religion or never joined.

If they’re not careful, they’re on their way to becoming emotional and spiritual wrecks.

These mostly young political devotees deserve respect regardless of what one might think about their ideas and views. Talk to any of them and it’s obvious they care deeply about cultivating a fairer, better society. It’s good that they have more substantive interests and more developed moral sensibilities than what their older detractors associate with them.

But as important as they are, politics — political outcomes, in particular — are not a good place for human beings to invest our ultimate hopes and dreams. They inevitably let us down.

It’s not just progressive nonbelievers lured into unhealthy relationships with politics. A similar tendency seems to have taken hold even among the subset of churchgoing Americans who pride themselves on taking their religion more seriously than the rest of us: evangelical Christians. In discerning their positions on immigration, climate change and politicians’ character, evangelicals appear to turn to the Republican party playbook more than the Bible.

Given the way Donald Trump has been delivering for his evangelical base with Supreme Court appointees and the attention the president has paid to religious freedom, going all in with the GOP might appear a wise investment.

It’s not. Political partisanship has hamstrung evangelicalism’s ability to pursue what is supposed to be the core of its mission: to share the good news of the gospel. In the same way, some progressive Christians have made social justice politics their ultimate, instead of their pursuit of God.

President Trump speaks via a live feed to anti-abortion activists as they rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 19, 2018, during the annual March for Life. The march protests the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 decision that declared a constitutional right to abortion. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Whether you are religious or secular, conservative or liberal, caring about politics too much — caring the wrong way — can contaminate your soul and poison your emotional and spiritual core. It can leave you high and dry on an island of anger and disillusionment.

In a heated election season like this, the headlines and campaign messages toss you around on a wild roller-coaster ride. The subject lines take you from happy and excited to “heartbreak.”

They bring tidings of “bombshells” and “collapses” and “shocking” new twists in this or that race. You’ll be urged to get mad and seek revenge for the latest bad thing done by your political enemies.

One moment, you’re elated by a new poll showing your candidate surging. Your faith in humanity is restored by an inspiring video on Facebook. The next moment, this restored faith is crushed by headlines about sinister voter suppression tactics or the horrible thing that was just said or done by a dastardly hypocrite from the other party.

No one rides these chaotic tides for very long without burning out or breaking down.

Caring deeply about electoral politics can bring you highs, for sure. You’ll occasionally experience the sweet taste of victory and the satisfaction of seeing righteousness rewarded.

You will also suffer the sick feeling of defeat. You’ll see good deeds punished and bad deeds rewarded. You’ll know the pain of witnessing awful people winning and gloating about it.

You’ll be encouraged to turn a blind eye to the unethical tactics your side will employ to win.

You’ll be drawn into despising people on the other side and coming to regard them not as people but as cardboard cutouts representing all that’s loathsome in the world.

This is no way to live.

Make no mistake: Responsible, faithful citizenship requires political engagement. Never in recent history has voting been more important and — depending on your demographic group — more under threat. There is dignity and meaning in the struggle for a fair and just society. Please, get involved. Vote!

But don’t kid yourself that political outcomes will bring you meaning, purpose or salvation.

Invest your ultimate in faith, in enduring principles, in relationships with full human beings who are more to you, and you to them, than Democrats or Republicans. Invest in the value of the struggle itself — the struggle for a fairer and more humane world. It is the dream that is never fully realized but can never be snuffed out.

Invest in those things because they will still be there regardless of what happens on Nov. 6.

(Tom Krattenmaker writes on religion in public life and directs communications at Yale Divinity School. His latest book is “Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower.”)

So that’s what “Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower” really sound like. High on “Secular”. But low on the “Follower”-bit. Not so much as a peep or beep about this “Jesus”, even. Other than the bit about “progressive Christians [making] social justice politics their ultimate, instead of their pursuit of God” – who are you “confess[ing]” to, in reality?

I’ll compliment this piece on its good intentions, and suggest a few additions:

It’s not just “progressive nonbelievers” who are astonished and disheartened by the current political environment. The kindly honest Jesus of progressive BELIEVERS has been kidnapped and is being held hostage in America at this time by Republicans, Conservatives, Constitutional “Originalists”, the Club For Growth, the Chamber of Commerce, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and everyone else who has been lying to you about economics and environment for the past 38 years. A great deal of Evangelical Church went off the rails at Ronald Reagan and only got worse—-to the point of having made Donald Trump (DONALD TRUMP!) the de facto leader of Evangelicalism in America. If your church has a lot of these kinds of Trumpism sympathizers, ditch it. You cannot fellowship with these people. They don’t want YOU if your balanced opinions are ever revealed to them. Stop hiding from the right-wingers at your church. You can and should have Jesus in your heart WITHOUT any church or group of people writing your doctrine for you.

Next, do your political thinking and venting in the comment section under an assumed name, where you can write your heart out. Do not poison your life by dragging politics into your real (real) relationships with family, neighbors, coworkers, bosses, social fiends, customers, sports leagues, school associates, community events, etc. Exception: Church. If it is full of Trumpees or those who support all things GOP but make excuses for him and his persona, get out now. Just quit going. “No need to discuss much”, as Paul Simon wrote in 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. If the pastor calls and asks, tell him or her (only) why you left. There is never going to be a fix for this right-wing nonsense ruining American Christianity—–except for the Christians who know better to get up, go out the door of misled congregations and STOP SUPPORTING IT.

Seeking salvation through politics. Hmmmmm……. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the author may be protesting too much.

For some of us, it’s our religious convictions that motivate our political work.
And as for partisan politics — the fact is that we have two major parties in this country, and the viable candidates will generally be from one or the other. I am not sure how one gets around that at the present time.
There was a time — not even that long ago, that members of Congress — especially in the Senate, were willing to work across party lines to achieve compromise. Tip O’Neill was famous for being able to work compromises in the House. Most recently, that ability to compromise came to a screeching halt when O’Connell famously stated that his party’s primary goal would be to ensure that Obama would be a one-term president.

Religion has earned a bad name in the past years, as many of those who loudly call themselves Christians have fought against equality for gays and have supported racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim actions. Many who are active in the various progressive political movements have given up on religion and are working for justice through politics. Political action, after all, is how change is effected in a secular democracy.

You know, today I could crap on about how Trump was fooled by MBS but here’s the thing- Time/CNN were also enamored with the beast.
You could have added something worthwhile but chose to focus on Trump. We find the anti-Trump rhetoric to be so bitter that it isn’t worth reading/hearing anymore.

I suggest that instead of howling about Trump repeatedly, you focus on finding an opponent to Trump who makes more sense and isn’t a polarizing figure like gore, hillary or sanders.

If you want to save the world from climate change then find a leader who actually practices what he preaches. David Suzuki stopped jet-setting a few years back because he said that all the jetting around was too much for his personal carbon footprint. See, he actually lives it.

So, if you’re going to beat us over the head with climate change doom nonsense then at least have the brain power to elect a leader who isn’t a jet-setting hypocrite. In other words, practice what you preach.

If you are going to hit people over the head with Paris climate accord nonsense then instead of targeting meat eaters, target the alcohol consumers for hundreds of thousand of hectares globally goes toward growing hops, which does nothing good for planet earth.

YOU pick a leader who doesn’t drink and can claim the moral high ground on climate care as compared to alcohol consuming politicians.

I could go on but meh, there’s not much point as you don’t observe.

Wouldn’t it be great if maybe, just maybe before you shot off that loud mouth of yours in future, you stopped to examine the actions of the leaders you prop up and you weighed their actual actions compared with the dogmatic nonsense your fellow comrade demonstrators spew?

I’m an Aussie and right now we have a conservative Christian Prime Minster. He does good things but the left hate him for his religious beliefs, preferring their godless trade unions and money printing socialism.

This reminds me of C. S. Lewis’s law of “First and Second Things”: “every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made”, or, a bit more succinctly, “You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first”. Politics is second to quite a number of things. Get your priorities wrong, or expect politics to give you meaning that is actually found elsewhere, and you give up finding meaning in either.

You’re misled by CS Lewis and now you’re misleading others in the name of CS Lewis. For what he believed & wrote was:

“To love you [or politics] and as I should, I must worship God as Creator. When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest [or politics], I shall love my earthly dearest [or politics] better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest [or politics] at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest [or politics] at all. When first things [like God as Creator] are put first, second things [like politics] are not suppressed but increased.”
– C.S. Lewis, Letters of C. S. Lewis, Harvest Books, 2003.

Get your religious beliefs off my civil rights. We do not negotiate with terrorists who wish to rob us of control over our own bodies, including but not limited to our sexuality and reproductive processes.

Also, weren’t you banned by Mark Silk, the one RNS poster who has even attempted to moderate this cesspool of a forum?

The more I have studied the defining characteristics of the conservative Christianity the more it becomes apparent that it isn’t Christian, at least not as Jesus taught in the New Testament. Conservative Christianity is all about the ascendancy of the Old Testament over the New Testament. It’s like Jesus is more or less the prodigal son, and it’s the elder son that is God’s true besty.

And “have [you] studied the defining characteristics of the [progress]ive Christianity”? What’s wrong with Tom Krattenmaker’s point about “progressive Christians [making] social justice politics their ultimate, instead of their pursuit of God”? Or is that just a smokescreen on his part, because his primary target, as is yours, has always been “conservative Christianity”? That’s my suspicion, and you kind of confirm it. Thanks.

If I had a problem with Tom Krattenmaker’s point, I would have said something. I don’t. I know a lot of social justice progressives who have left their churches precisely because those churches decided policing other people’s bedrooms was more important than the Sermon on the Mount.

God may have created a perfect world, but Adam and Eve still had free will to screw it up. They made a choice, and it wasn’t the right one because their perfect world wasn’t totally perfect. There was a snake in the tree.

You’re nervously avoiding the subject of my original comment, to which you replied. Which is: Is Tom Krattenmaker’s article targeting “conservative Christianity” and “social justice progressives” – or just the former? If both, how can you say, “I don’t have … a problem with [his] point” about “progressives”?

I don’t understand what you are trying to say. I don’t disagree in the main with Krattenmaker’s points. I do personally believe that rightwing Christianity drives GOP politics too much, and it’s destroying it’s credibility as a true representation of Christianity. Social Justice Christians are like cats. They are not easily herded and would have more success politically if they could at least get on one or two similar pages.

Whats totally lost on this author and most people today is, Christ, the disciples and prophets were all killed for exposing these corrupt bastards and breaking their laws. It is the Christians’ mission to ‘follow’ Christ, not worship him. Christians are to expose the corrupt men and their corrupt, oppressive system, not participate in it. They instead have joined the party that uses God and people’s faith to manipulate them to gain power. Though the bible has been tampered with tremendously, there is still lots of evidence of this. Its splattered from cover to cover…

Your leaders are rebellious, and companions of thieves: they all love gifts, and follow after rewards: they deny justice to the fatherless, neither does the plight of the widow come to them. -Isaiah 1:23

Perverse men of corrupt minds, destitute of the Truth, supposing that gain is godliness…-1Tim 6:5 Having eyes full of sexual desires, and cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: a mind they have exercised with greedy practices; cursed men..-.2Peter 2:14 They turn justice to bitterness, and neglect whats right… -Amos 5:7 they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the people from whats right.- 5:12 They oppress the people to increase their riches, and they give to the rich…-Prov 22:16 They speak great swelling words of pride, they manipulate using the desires of the people, through much wantonness… While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption…-2 Peter2:19

…they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter (district). -Isa 56:11 In whose hands is mischief, and their right hand (priority) is full of bribes. -Psa 26:10 …but these, as natural brute beasts (belligerents), made to be taken and destroyed, shall utterly perish in their own corruption; -2 Peter 2:12

They speak vanity every one with his neighbor: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.- Psa 12:2 They flatter with their tongue. There is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is truly wicked; their throat is an open tomb.-Psa 5:9 …they serve their own belly; and by GOOD words and FAIR speeches deceive the minds of the simple. -Rom 16:18
They come to you as the people come …they hear your words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their greed.-Ezekiel 33:31

They bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the Truth; they proceed from evil to evil, and they dont know God/good …they deceive every one, and will not speak the Truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and exhaust themselves in greed. Their habitation is in the midst of deceit; because of deceit they refuse to know God/good …their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaks deceit: he speaks peaceably to neighbors, but in his mind he lays their wait…-Jeremiah 9:3

There’s no record for a Charlotte McFarland the American, or non-U.S. citizen, at Pink News UK except for this lousy input in the “Reader comments” on the article, “The Satanic Temple has a devilishly clever way of supporting people who want gay cakes”. And that, too, going back to “September 27, 2017”.

I ask you again to provide samples of your work as a self-proclaimed “advocate of social reform”.

Whats totally lost on this author and most people today is – Christ, the disciples and prophets were all killed for exposing these corrupt ‘vipers’ and breaking their laws. It is the Christians’ mission to ‘follow’ Christ, not worship him. He could care less about one ‘worshiping’ him. Christians are to expose corrupt men and their corrupt, oppressive system, not participate in it. They instead have joined the party that uses God and people’s faith to manipulate them for political gain and power. Though the bible has been tampered with tremendously, there is still lots of evidence of this. Its splattered from cover to cover. I tried listing dozens of verses from cover to cover, but the moderators on this board declared it ‘spam’. I’ll list just a few verses and see if they reject it again…

Your leaders are rebellious, and companions of thieves: they all love gifts, and follow after rewards: they deny justice to the fatherless, neither does the plight of the widow come to them. -Isaiah 1:23

…they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter (district). – Isa 56:11

Perverse men of corrupt minds, destitute of the Truth, supposing that gain is godliness…-1Tim 6:5

Having eyes full of sexual desires, and cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: a mind they have exercised with greedy practices; cursed men. – 2Peter 2:14

Ah, yes, but of course, of course, like you said, a self-proclaimed “white bisexual genderqueer” is “better than” a self-proclaimed born-from-above, fired-up and die-hard follower of THE Christ Jesus of the gospels, epistles and revelation!

You’re using the term “homophobia” as an ad hominem argument against those who advocate values or positions of which you, a self-proclaimed “white bisexual genderqueer”, do not approve.

FYII (For Your Insult to the Intelligence):

(1) “Existing measures of homophobia have been inadequately psychometrically evaluated and therefore it is not clear whether currently this construct can be accurately measured. … Also the construct of homophobia, as it is usually used, makes an illegitimately pejorative evaluation of certain open and debatable value positions”.

(2) “The boundary of the term ‘homophobia’ is made so elastic that it can stretch around, not just phobias, but every kind of rational fear as well; and not just around every kind of fear, but also around every critical posture or idea that anyone may have about the practice of homosexuality”.

No, you deceitfully misread what Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment is telling you in plain & uncomplicated terms:

“[Your] construct of homophobia, as it is usually used [by you at RNS] makes an illegitimately pejorative evaluation of certain open and debatable value positions”.

Hence, instead of “evaluat[ing] certain open and debatable value positions” presented to you at RNS, you’ve been resorting to exploiting the term “homophobia” as an ad hominem – not to mention non sequitor & strawman – argument against those who advocate values or positions of which you, a self-proclaimed “white bisexual genderqueer”, do not approve, except to be, as you put it, “lynched”.

They’re my proof that, instead of “evaluat[ing] certain open and debatable value positions” presented to you at RNS, you’ve been resorting to exploiting the term “homophobia” as an ad hominem – not to mention non sequitor & strawman – argument against those who advocate values or positions of which you, a self-proclaimed “white bisexual genderqueer”, do not approve, except to be, as you put it, “lynched”.

PROOF #1 – See, you refuse to read those 3 in their entirety, thereby proving that, instead of “evaluat[ing] certain open and debatable value positions” presented to you at RNS, you’ve been resorting to exploiting the term “homophobia” as an ad hominem – not to mention non sequitor & strawman – argument against those who advocate values or positions of which you, a self-proclaimed “white bisexual genderqueer”, do not approve, except to be, as you put it, “lynched”.

“Politics as a substitute for religion will inevitably let [Truthin] down” ESPECIALLY, ‘YO. Nothing that re-evangelization can’t fix, however, even for The Lost Soul with the Lost Manifesto of the Religious Left that:

“Christ, the disciples and ‘prophets’ were simply good guys killed for exposing corrupt leadership, both political and religious, and breaking their ‘laws’.”

Here’s to hoping against hoping that one day in glory Truthin shall, after reading this, end up a born-from-above, fired-up and die-hard follower of THE Christ Jesus of the gospels, epistles and revelation, by enduring the cross that he’s to carry in his life of faith in response to the ransoming Fatherly love of God through the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of His own beloved Son, Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and the savior of the rest of the world!

I can help you with that. Here’s my Bitzness Kard from the good ‘ol Sojourners years.

I don’t know about all that feel-good bs theyre feeding you. The idea is to simply be a good person, giving a damn about humanity and the planet. Exposing the wicked bastards who are screwing things up as he did, helps. If something good happens after life, great… if it doesn’t, its ok too. That’s about as elementary as I can make it for you. Hope it helps, ‘YO…

You can’t possibly “simply be a good person” in God & Jesus’ eyes. For “I [DO] know about all that feel-good bs theyre feeding you” over there at the First Social Justice Warrior Church of Babylon, New York. It ain’t the gospel of the ransoming Fatherly love of God through the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of His own beloved Son, Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and the savior of the rest of the world; that’s for sure.

Yea! put the glorypipe down there ‘yo’ jew-israel worshipin, politicized delusional pu**ygrabbin Tramp hero, nationalized-islam hatin, genocide-pushin new yorkin Fatherly love – can’t deal with the verses of truth put forth, so you become mr YO lost soul Babbylin guts’y sojourner who believes your all perfect god oops screwed up so he wiped out all life, started over with drunk Noah with baby dinosaurs on his boat, then makes Moses and Joshua genocide canaanites, moabites, ammonites, numerous more tribes innocent children, animals and all, “except for the young girls keep for yourselves” b/c an earthquake wouldn’t work… then perfectly oops screwed up again and had to sacrifice his only son by a virgin he got pregnant… but the scriptures have never been altered for political gain/social control, and is the perfect word of an impartial jew-favoring god…

I have Alex Jones magic beans for sale… some white (supremacist) ones just for ‘YO’u.